In pace with the expansion of the Grängesberg mines in the late 1800s, housing was needed for all the workers who were streaming in from all over the country. The community swelled rapidly, undergoing a threefold increase in population in just ten years. Accommodation was largely in the form of barracks, each of which gave lodgings to about 20 people.

But it soon became necessary to provide a better standard of accommodation, and two streets of houses were therefore built, Källfallet (1896) and Stora Hagen (1898). In a historical sense, the houses belonged to the traditional works establishments, but the buildings were different: they were square in shape and each of the four houses in each building had its own entrance, much in the style of workers’ cottages in Britain. The success of these buildings resulted in their becoming a model for working-class people throughout the country.

The Stora Hagen district was renovated in 1989–90. At number twenty-two, the local heritage association is running a museum on the theme of “Mining folk”. On the ground floor is a monument to Bernhard Ericsson, a former miner who became first a member of parliament, then a minister of state, and finally Lord Lieutenant (governor) of the county.

The new homes of 1898 were the first rented properties. They were often occupied by large families of eight to ten persons, and many also took in lodgers. The 1963 building shows how a mineworker lived 65 years’ later.

Two other housing areas in Grängesberg that are of historical interest are Björkås, built in 1915–35, which is based on the British garden-city system, with miners and their families living in their own homes, and Bergslagsbyn, where the houses are timber built and painted in the famous Falu-red wash. These were built in the 1920s by Stora Kopperberg on a site know as Gudmundbergets brant.